DAVID PULLINS: One of the really wonderful things about this painting is the way that it has layers as you start to understand what's going on, because it's not obvious at first glance.

NARRATOR: Take the young man at the center. He’s handing the older woman a coin: paying her to read his fortune.

DAVID PULLINS: And once you think you've got that, you realize that's only yet another layer in the onion.

NARRATOR: While he’s distracted, the other women pick his pockets. Associate Curator David Pullins.

DAVID PULLINS: It was a common trope for this kind of genre painting, to show a fortune teller reading usually a privileged person's fortune and often, in the process being robbed.

NARRATOR: One question we might ask is - why was this subject matter so popular?

RABBI SAMANTHA FRANK: I think that it might have sold easily or quickly, because it's an image that maybe reinforces stereotypes, and it ... it doesn't challenge you.

I'm Rabbi Samantha Frank.

I'm just thinking about the bigger picture. Most people who, if they are actually stealing from others, it's not their first choice of activity.

NARRATOR: The fortune teller’s darker skin suggests that she is from an ethnic group called the Roma people who were itinerant, traveling from place to place.

DAVID PULLINS: So these are individuals who are moving throughout Europe, and in that way, they were often seen with a lot of suspicion because they were passing through town.

RABBI SAMANTHA FRANK: I'm thinking about how different populations throughout time are forced into certain trades, or maybe prevented from joining other trades or activities. And just thinking about how discrimination can lead to stereotypes and sort of a cycle can begin. 

NARRATOR: In this painting, it’s not just the fortune teller’s skin tone that stereotypes her. It’s also her somewhat gaudy clothing.

DAVID PULLINS: It's intended to be somewhat exoticizing. It's really over the top in a way.

RABBI SAMANTHA FRANK: I also just like his pink sleeves. I'll say for me, that's sometimes a way into some of this art that is challenging. One of the things I try to do is find a detail that I can admire. And I think in this one it's the pink, and maybe the gold of the…the very pale woman next to him, on the top of her dress.